From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sat Jan 17 2004 - 21:39:19 GMT
Hi Matt and Paul -very clear debate, keep it up.
Matt said: I thought you might take that ethnocentric line. I thought about
it myself. But the language Pirsig uses still seems too ambiguous, too
transcendental, too ahistorical, too scientistic.
DM: Now I am a transcendental realist, and this is pretty close to
pragmatism, but I feel it enables me to recognise a
few things you can't as a 'straight' pragmatist (loosen up), such as I am
happy to accept that the Earth had no life
on it x million years ago, a fallible belief, but one I am happy to take
pretty seriously given the other things I believe
about what you need to support life, I think there is a whole lot of causal
and acausal stuff going on beyond the current comprehension of human beings
that perhaps we will get a better understanding of some time, and that
knowledge can be about discovering deeper layers of causal structures and
not simply something that just 'works well' for our practices.
This relates to what you say: " If you are saying simply that the
"scientific method" is simply the more methodical "application" of what
people normally do every second of the day on the scientists chosen
material, then pragmatists would happily agree to such a de-divinization.
Of course, that means there would be an analogous "literary method," which
would simply be the more methodical "application" of what people normally do
every second of the day on the literary critics chosen material. At this
point it becomes a little silly to speak of a "method." "
DM: Now to get to deep structures such as gravity you have to do some
amazing non-normal creative stuff like see how you can relate apples falling
to planets orbitting. And what is this gravity other than a hidden and
deeply explanatory causal structure? We accept gravity when it manifests
itself on our place and the engine stops, and we accept it as abstractly
present when it explains what keeps us fixed to the ground and not floating
about. I don't think most scientists are able to work on the basis of
looking for something useful that 'works', technologists maybe, but they
seek deeper structures. As a non-essentialist, non-reductionist, I see
ontologically real and causal things all over the place and not just in some
kind of forces, atoms or substance. human beings and ideas are causes. I
shout 'fire fire' convincingly enough and you guys will get out of here,
well if you were here and not just virtual guys. I have used a couple of
examples here from Roy Bhaskar's dialectical transcendental critical
realism, or meta-reality as it now stands.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT" <mpkundert@students.wisc.edu>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2004 8:49 PM
Subject: Re: MD Matt's Favorite Antipragmatist Statement
> Paul said:
> Because if a germ evolved into a higher organism than a human it would no
longer be a germ, it would be an animal or something new.
>
> Matt:
> I thought you might take that ethnocentric line. I thought about it
myself. But the language Pirsig uses still seems too ambiguous, too
transcendental, too ahistorical, too scientistic.
>
> I don't know, something to think about.
>
> Paul said:
> Science is a formal application of reason. I don't think it is synonymous.
>
> Matt:
> BLeh. Saying "Science is a formal application of reason" is close enough
to saying the two are synonymous for pragmatists. Pragmatists typically
think of reason and rationality as the ability to remain conversable or as
the ability to follow a series of inferences. If you are saying simply that
the "scientific method" is simply the more methodical "application" of what
people normally do every second of the day on the scientists chosen
material, then pragmatists would happily agree to such a de-divinization.
Of course, that means there would be an analogous "literary method," which
would simply be the more methodical "application" of what people normally do
every second of the day on the literary critics chosen material. At this
point it becomes a little silly to speak of a "method."
>
> Paul said:
> The nature of the conflicts *usually* *seemed* to be clearer.
>
> Matt:
> Sounds good.
>
> Paul said:
> I think he is a pragmatic metaphysician.
>
> Matt:
> I still don't see why we have to live with such a contradiction. If
humans tend to smooth out contradictions when they come to them, why insist
on this one? Why stop at this one and say, "Well, that's just the way it
is." To me it just means you haven't tried hard enough yet. Time has
smoothed out other contradictions, why should we stop now? (This line of
questioning being analogous to the line I took earlier with metaphysicians
hypostatizing current common sense.)
>
> Matt
>
>
>
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